Pythagorean Thinking

A detailed Summary of Pythagorean Thinking

There is a young boy named Jimmy sitting at his desk in his home. Jimmy is a freshman in high school aspiring to attend college and become successful in life. Jimmy is attempting to complete his geometry homework while he is listening to the new Three Doors Down album. Does Jimmy realize that the geometry he is calculating and even the music he is listening to were both highly influenced by one man and his way of thinking? That man is Pythagoras and that way of thinking has been named Pythagoreanism. Pythagorean thinking has been shared by many people in the past by unifying mathematics with the purification of the soul and has had great influence on modern western culture.

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos around 550 B.C. (Loomis 7). He must be considered one of the world's greatest men, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine we know as Pythagorean thinking is due to the founder of the society and how much is later development ("Harmony" 1). Sometimes he is represented as a man of science, a man of mathematics, a man of music, and sometimes as a preacher of religious doctrines, and we might be tempted to regard one or other of those characters as historical

Pythagoreans, both early ones in Kroton and ones thereafter, had two themes that were characteristic of their views. These themes were soul and number and were initially separate thoughts of early Pythagoreans. Their soul doctrine determined moral conduct. Their number theories alleged that everything in the physical world could be explained by mathematics. Plato later combined the two themes when he declared that the soul was an intermediary between intelligibles and sensibles, with both of those to be mathematically determined ("Doctrines" 2).

In conclusion, Pythagorean thinking has been a dynamic force in Western culture. It has creatively influenced philosophers, theologians, mathematicians, and astronomers, as well as musicians, composers, and poets. Pythagoras himself simply mathematized his life and was the leader to many great advancements. "He had discovered a connection between arithmetic and aesthetics, between the natural world and the human soul. Perhaps the same unifying principle could be applied elsewhere; and where better to try then with the puzzle of the heavens themselves" (Ferrera 267).

The Mathematici group eventually became closely associated with the doctrine of Plato and his followers, who established the Platonic Academy. The Acusmatici became

wandering ascetics, finally joining the Cynics of the fourth century B.C. There is speculation as to the reasons for the separation of the Pythagoreans. It should be understood that the Mathematici group did not abandon the ethical stubbornness of Pythagoras, which the Acusmatici maintained, but developed a Pythagorean world-view that served as a framework and justification for the older themes. The two factors whic

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Approximate Word count = 1153
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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